The Open Era by Edward Schmit

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026--San Antonio

 The Open Era by Edward Schmit is a romance novel building on the success of Heated Rivalry which I read when it was first published and before it became the popular TV series that it is now.  Instead of the story of two hockey players, this book is built around two tennis players.  One has entered the pre-playoffs at the US Open Championship.  If he wins the pre-playoffs, he will automatically become an official candidate in the championship playoffs which will access to the big money of the highest levels of professional tennis.  Lots of attention is on him because of being the first openly gay player in professional tennis.  The other player is the #2 ranked tennis player in the world.  In Heated Rivalry, the two hockey players started a secret relationship while being drafted within the highest professional hockey league and planned their careers around being able to maintain that relationship while pretending to be straight in public.  In this book, everyone knows that Austin Hardy is gay.  But Austin and everyone else wonders why Diego Cruz is obviously being very friendly with him.  Another difference between the characters of the two books is that the players in the hockey story have been actively gay, but closeted, for years before they ever meet.  In this book, Austin has only had one brief relationship as a teenager and has not been sexually active since then even thought he is publicly out as a gay man.  Diego supposedly has never been active in a gay sense.  So do not expect as much sex as there was in the hockey book.  Instead, this is more of a will they/won't they romance story with lots of "hickups" stalling the possibilities in a repeating start/stop narrative.  It's a decent book worth reading to make your own decision of whether they should end up together or just enjoy what they can while it lasts.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 5.

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters

Sunday, August 9, 2026--San Antonio

I actually read Last First Kiss by Julian Winters two novels ago (between reading Buckeye and Helen of Nowhere), but I just noticed I never wrote about it here.  It is a gay novel set in present-day Atlanta.  The protagonist is a man whose family operates a prestigious event planning agency.  He has just become a planner within the company and has been assigned to plan a rushed wedding event--rushed because the husband-to-be is the son of a famous Hollywood director and is to work with him on a new film starting production in only 3 months.  In meeting with the couple, the wife-to-be's best friend shows up.  He happens to be Jamie--someone that Jordan, the planner, has known since they were adolescents.  But there is a troubled history there.  Jordan is now in his late 20s, and Jamie is the only person he has ever kissed--an event that happened years ago when they were experimenting as children.  All his life, Jordan has never felt right in relationships, and he has never forgotten the feeling he got from that kiss with Jamie.  In fact, a year or so earlier than the time of the story, he had approached Jamie (who has been Jordon's cousins best friend all along and who is openly gay), to see if their friendship could be renewed and if maybe an even closer relationship could be established.  But he did something that caused Jamie to cut off their friendship, and this is the first time they have interacted since.  It's a romance novel, so the reader knows something is going to happen.  They story is really about all the fits and false starts that are part of the relationship before they finally accept that they have been destined to be together from the time of that first kiss.  It was a fun, fast read--a good summer novel.  I have it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Land by Maggie O"Farrell

Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026--San Antonio

Land by Maggie O'Farrell has been praised by many others.  It is a novel set in Ireland from before and great potato famine to the rumblings of the war beginning against British rule.  It begins with two young characters who have been sent to the workhouse for children because everyone else in their families have died due to the famine.  It follows their travails in the work house and on through their lives and those of their children.  There is one adventure and misadventure after another over the decades.  The story involves so much of what was happening during those times:  The leavings by those who can to the Americas (and by those who are sold off to go there as indentured servants with no choice).  The great opportunities that some "unfortunates" accidentally get because it is discovered that they have unexpected skills (such as being able to read, write, or do mathematics).  The hardships that most families face because the feudal system of land still belonging to the aristocrats who lease parcels to farmers who can barely make the rent payments and often cannot and face expulsion.  The children of the artistocrats feeling entitled and that they can take advantage those poorer than them.  The priests who hold so much power over the people that their actions cannot be questioned even though they may not be aligned with the teachings of their religion and can create havoc for the people).  Superstitions related to the history of the druids is still a big part of people's daily lives.  The story follows those two original characters as they establish a family on a narrow peninsula of western Ireland, and it continues to cover the lives of the family members as the years pass.  It is a sweeping novel that will hold the reader's attention throughout.  My only concern is that the story of the last years covered seemed to be rushed in comparison to the rest of the novel.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman

Thursday, July 30, 2026

Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman is a short novel which is longlisted for the Booker Prize this year.  Personally, I thought of it as a philosphy book presented in the form of a story with lots of metaphors.  It's the kind of book that makes you think and reason more than it entertains you.  It's good it was short, because if it had been 300 pages instead of half that, I would have quit it along the way.  But the chapters were short and each was a different look at the same situation from the perspective of different characters.  I gave the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5.  

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

Sunday, July 26, 2026--San Antonio

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan started somewhat slowly for me.  I considered quiting it.  But about 30% of the way through, it took off and I didn't want to put it down.  It is a sweeping novel about America while concentrating on two families and the town in Ohio were they live.  It covers time from the late 1930s to the approximately 1980.  It dwells on love and forgivness from the beginning to the end as it brings up so many situations that commonly happen over time--being abandoned as a child, keeping secrets from others within the family, going to war, falling in love, losing a loved one, cheating on a loved one, trying to save a marriage, having a spouse who doesn't understand or even believe something about you that is important to you, gay men marrying women in hopes they can be what society expects of them and the consequences for both the man and the wife (and the children) in such a marriage, changes taking place in society over time, wars that keep happening with severe consequences for those involved (not necessarily voluntarily) and too often going wrong over time, etc.  The characters are interesting.  The story is great.  I gave the book 4 1/2 stars out of 5.

One Sun Only by Camille Bordas

Saturday, July 18, 2026--San Antonio

One Sun Only by Camille Bordas is a collection of short stories.   I read all of them, but it took me longer than usual.  Although each was well written, many did not keep me eager to continue reading.  I spent over a week reading the whole collection.  3 stars out of 5

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Monday, July 6, 2026--San Antonio

In my opinion, the very popular book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig is not a good novel.  It has contradictions and and is not very logical (even if one believes in the theory it is based upon).  I spent most of my time reading it trying to determine why it was so popular.  But I think I know.  People may think they are reading a good novel, but instead they are reading a rather clever self-help book.  They overlook the problems with it as a novel and let the book guide themselves through analyzing their own lives.  They think about their own regrets.  They think about the dreams they have abaondoned.  They think about how unhappy they are rather than what they can do to improve their life experience.  The book guides the reader through the failures experienced by Nora that have led to her suicide effort.  It provides a framework for analyzing what her life might have been if she had made different choices along the way by actually temporarily living the alternative to see if it is better or not.  As she is doing that, the reader is likely reasoning through whether the alternative choices they might have made themselves and what would be good/what could go wrong under those circumstances.  By the end, the book is guiding the reader to make a decision about what they could do to better appreciate the life that they have have been living so far so that they can make the future better.  See, it is a fairly good self-help guide.  But as a novel, I give it only 3 stars out of 5.